Human Rights Watch (HRW) has denounced the United States for deporting migrants to third countries located in Africa. The humanitarian organization highlighted that some of these countries have arbitrarily detained individuals, while others have sent them to regions where they risk torture or persecution, infringing the international principle of non-refoulement.
In its report titled 'To Scare People: US Deportations of Citizens from Third Countries to African Nations,' HRW stated that North American authorities prevented over 500 deported people from having a real chance to contest their expulsions or to voice their fears about being sent to these countries.
The document is based on interviews conducted with 24 individuals transferred from the United States to six African nations: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, and South Sudan. HRW exposed the poor conditions and treatment given to these immigrants in those locations, citing the denial of medical assistance.
The report points out that the US has sent people facing dangers in third countries, including individuals identifying as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender) to African states that criminalize homosexual relationships. Among the deportees were also refugees who had already received protection from the US.
According to the NGO, sending people to places where they have never been is part of the mass deportation strategy of the North American administration, aiming to intimidate and deter migration. The interim director of the US program for Human Rights Watch, Michael Garcia Bochenek, declared that 'deporting people to countries where they have never set foot is part of a US policy designed to cause human suffering as a means of deterring migration.'
Garcia Bochenek added that the deportation placed individuals in situations where it was neither safe to return home nor possible to obtain adequate protection in a third country. HRW called on the African governments that signed these agreements to suspend or cancel them, refusing to receive people under these circumstances, and urged the United States to immediately halt these deportations of asylum seekers and refugees.
Michael Garcia Bochenek emphasized that several African governments are not only complicit in the abuses committed by the US but have also violated the human rights of these people, notably through arbitrary detention and, in some cases, returning them to the countries from which they fled.
HRW warns that the US is disregarding both national and international obligations by transferring people to dangerous places or places from which they may be re-deported. The legality of these actions will be examined in December by the Supreme Court of the United States, which will analyze whether deportation to third countries infringes the 'due process' clause of the American Constitution. Despite this, the high court authorized the continuation of the expulsions during the proceedings.
It is observed that since Donald Trump's return to the presidency of the United States in January 2025, the volume of deportations has increased considerably, fulfilling a central promise of his election campaign. The reinforcement of border control and the tightening of internal inspections have resulted in an express growth in arrests and expulsions from American territory, with the administration using unprecedented methods, such as transfer to third countries, to execute its mass deportation plan.